New Article Reveals 27 Strategies for Breaking Bad Habits

Unlike other authors in the personal development market, Scott believes in a holistic approach to making a permanent habit change. Instead of focusing on one area, he recommends incorporating goals that include health, success and overall happiness. This is a strategy he has used in his personal life, including his recent book on creating 70 healthy habits.

On his blog, S.J. provides a four-phase strategy for eliminating any permanent habit: 1. Planning for the habit change. 2. Understanding the habit loop. 3. Building a support system. 4. Overcoming challenges. The key to this whole process, Scott claims, is to focus on changing one habit at a time.

“In a way, willpower is like a muscle,” Scott writes. “When it’s overexerted, it becomes hard to control your impulses. It can get tired and worn out from too much use. If your days are filled with stress and constant battles to control your emotions or thinking, you often won’t have the capacity to resist temptations.

You won’t succeed if you try to change multiple habits at the same time. Each one requires a significant amount of willpower to resist, which leaves you in a glucose-depleted state. Most people don’t have the “willpower energy” to focus on multiple habits. So when they’re in a depleted state, it becomes too easy to give up on all of them, instead of just one.”

The one thing that stands out about Scott’s article is he places a strong emphasis on recording and learning from “habit loops,” which are the routines that people complete when doing a bad habit. He claims that the only way to forever eliminate a habit is to understand this loop and substitute it with a new routine.

“All habits have actions and thoughts that occur beforehand,” Scott writes. “The cue is the trigger that creates a craving to get a reward. The routine is the action you take to satisfy this impulse. The reward is the satisfaction you feel from following this routine or it’s the removal of stress that the cue created.”

We are constantly bombarded with cues to take certain actions. Sometimes they’re external where a sight, sound, or smell creates a craving. Other times, it’s an internal sensation that sparks this desire. To make a permanent change, you need to fully understand when and why these triggers occur.”

In addition to running his habits blog, Scott also publishes on the Amazon Kindle platform. Specifically, he recently published a book that covers 70 healthy habits. His long-term goal is to provide simple guides that readers can use to make permanent habit changes to their lives.